Speak It In Welsh

From the quarrelling captains in Henry V, to the linguistically challenged lovers in I Henry IV, to the monoglot vocalist Lady Mortimer, to the proud Sir Hugh Evans, Shakespeare offers Welsh characters whose voices, language use, and presence help reflect a sometimes marginali...

The existence of the Welsh-language can come as a surprise to those who assume that English is the foundation language of Britain. However, J. R. R. Tolkien described Welsh as the 'senior language of the men of Britain'. Visitors from outside Wales may be intrigued by the existence of Welsh and will want to find out how a language which has, for at least fifteen hundred years, been the closest neighbour of English, enjoys such vibrancy, bearing in mind that English has obliterated languages thousands of miles from the coasts of England. This book offers a broad historical survey of Welsh-language culture from sixth-century heroic poetry to television and pop culture in the early twenty-first century. The public status of the language is considered and the role of Welsh is compared with the roles of other of the non-state languages of Europe. This new edition of The Welsh Language offers a full assessment of the implications of the linguistic statistics produced by the 2011 Census. The volume contains maps and plans showing the demographic and geographic spread of Welsh over the ages, charts examining the links between words in Welsh and those in other Indo-European languages, and illustrations of key publications and figures in the history of the language. It concludes with brief guides to the pronunciation, the dialects and the grammar of Welsh.

An English/Welsh language booklet, teaching beginners how to speak Welsh using only 35 words. Created by Peter Roberts and Geraint Davies, this booklet teaches the same 35 key words needed to get by for the absolute beginner in any language, including: "I want something", "I want to buy something", "I need to find somewhere", or just "Thank you". This book not only teaches this core vocabulary, but shows how it fits together to create effective grammatical phrases. Despite the apparent simplicity of the concept, the authors have collaborated closely on the grammatical simplification needed to define those 35 words and phrases, useful both in the cities and countryside, ensuring that these simple phrases are all that is needed for people to learn and use. Speaking the language is sure to contribute to having a great holiday.

At last, a full, no-gimmick dictionary with 20,000 words and phrases. It has what learners really need: plenty of examples of words and phrases in context.

A new edition of a reliable guide to the Welsh language, combining a simple grammar, phrase book and dictionary. 10 black-and-white illustrations. First edition published in 1977.

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,6, University of Marburg, course: PS Semantics, language: English, abstract: There is a Welsh proverb which says: “Cenedlheb iaith cenedl heb galon”and which means “Anation without a language [is] a nation without a heart”. At the beginning of the third millenium Welsh is spoken by around half a milion people in Wales or about 20 percent of the population of 2.7000.000. This is more than double the number that spoke Welsh in the Middle Ages but around half the number that spoke it at the beginning in the 20th century. Welsh is understood by about 750.000 people in Wales. Welsh speakers are scattered in equal numbers all over the country. Some areas in the North and West are thought of as the Welsh heartland because the percentage speaking Welsh there is quite high, from 50 to 80 percent! But nummerically, Cardiff and Swansea areas have as many Welah speakers as the counties of north Wales. Welsh has been spoken for 1600 years and the Welsh language survived until today although people - especially the English people- tried more than once to bann it away. The English language has had and still has a strong influence on the Welsh language. History is one of the main reasons which made the Welsh language vanish.In the first part of my work I will have a look on the History of the Welsh language. What happened in the past that there are only 20 percent of the Welsh population who can speak Welsh left? In the second part I will examine the process of borrowing words from another language. The Welsh language mainly changed through borrowing words from the English language. As well as the Welsh gentry adopted the English manner and culture it also adopted the English language. In this part I will look in which way both languages borrowed from another and what were the reasons for borrrowing. In the last part I will answer the question if Welsh is a vanishing language and if it is the fault of the English language that Welsh nearly died out.

"This book analyzes the state of the Welsh language at the beginning of the twenty-first century, with contributions from leading scholars in the fields of sociology and language policy. The intention is to update our current understanding of Welsh as a living language; how its use, learning, understanding teaching, evolution and promulgation are developing in the brave new world of the twenty-first century where Welsh is spreading to the internet, electronic dictionaries and encyclopaedias.